I am amazed at Coughlin and all the people who don't understand that taking a knee in a one possession game is a completely different animal from taking a knee in a blowout. Coughlin takes a knee because it gives his team the best chance to win (see e.g. Pisarcik to Csonka to Edwards for 6) and he's pissed that Schiano calls the only play that gives his team any chance to win.

Half that just comes across as a bunch of babies. They think the rookie should learn his place. He probably is a jerk, but he still got a job in the NFL making good money. If he's successful, none of this will matter. If he's not, he might not have other opportunities in the NFL, but he can still find a good spot in college. I don't see any reason why he should really change.

I don't really agree. This doesn't sound like a failure to treat people with deference, this sounds like throwing your weight around and treating people like scum for no real reason. Maybe the complaints are overblown, but I'm just going by what the story says. That said, if he's successful I don't know why a bucs fan should care if he's a jerk.

I will say this; if you insist on remaining anonymous in making an allegation, and the allegation is that somebody in authority is a big meanie, and not that the person in authority is breaking the law or doing substantive harm to someone, then you are a real chickensh*t for insisting on remaining anonymous, and it is likely wise for everyone to ignore your complaints.

Perhaps, but I think Silver's generally pretty reliable, and if he says that Schiano's got a bad rep around the league I'm inclined to believe him. Whether anyone should care is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.

There's something to be said for not putting your name to an inflammatory comment against a person in your line of work. It may be better to keep it as gossip for a while. Then a guy speaks up (Coughlin) and the trash spills out of the gutter.

If you have to remain anonymous, fine, as long as you have something important to say, like, "My boss is sending out doctored account statements to our clients". I don't think, "That bad man won't smile at me in the hallway!" quite clears the bar. Either put your name to it, or just shut up.

I understand you're using intentional hyperbole, but I don't think the complaints are as petty as you're portraying them to be. Silver points out that most of the complaints don't center on perceived disrespect, they center on Schiano needlessly made it harder for scouts to evaluate his players. If it's true then that sucks for the scouts but, as sundown points out, it also sucks for the players.

"[Schiano] tried so hard to be a hard ass and went out of his way to be rude. When you'd pass him in the hallway, you might say, 'Good morning,' and he'd look at you like you're a [expletive] idiot. A guy like him doesn't realize that probably half of us played the game at a really high level – it's completely condescending. He would go out of his way to make you feel as uncomfortable as he could."

The article does repeat complaints about rudeness. But it also describes Schiano actually interfering with scouting by making it very hard for the scouts to observe the players or learn about them from Schiano's staff.

"Everyone was scared to talk to you."

"Schiano required visiting talent evaluators to spend part of the practice sessions sequestered in a small, sunken, dugout-like area far away from the non-visible field."

"The field's elevated, so this was down the steps, where you couldn't see, and there's a security guard holding you there 'till you get the OK to come out and watch practice. Sometimes you stood for 45 minutes and only got to watch for 10 minutes. It varied. If you tried to talk to anyone on the staff, [Schiano] gave you the stare-down."

You stated that the complaints were not as petty as I represented. I then quoted an extremely petty complaint.

Is it possible that some of the other complaints are more substantive? Sure, but you can't determine that merely from what Silver has written. The question of "Did Schiano's treatment of pro scouts harm the professional prospects of his players" is not a simple question to answer. It would take more investigation than what is on display here.

Of course, given where Schiano is coaching now, it's all moot, which leads back to a question as to whether Silver's piece has any relevance.

And I quoted complaints from the article that I thought were less petty and more substantive, but it appears you don't agree that they were, so we just have a different view on that point. I would concede that the piece isn't terribly relevant; any past bad behavior by Schiano, petty or not, will be irrelevant if he wins.

It's not worth publicly antagonizing "that bad man who I might have to work with or even for" in the small NFL world. If several people talk to Silver about Schiano's dislikability, there's a story there, even without anybody going on the record.

Yes, and if you don't tell Mike Silver that Greg Schiano is big meanie who won't smile at you in the hallway, or that a guy who is now an NFL coach did not, when he was a college coach, did not treat NFL scouts well, then you won't have a chance of antagonizing Greg Schiano.

The journalistic practice of granting anonymity is not supposed to be a way to let people simply smear others without fear of retribution. That's not journalism - it's gossip.

If anybody wants to sign their name to a complaint, I'll listen. But this "anonymous guy thinks Schiano is a jerk" isn't very interesting. It's really not all that hard to dig up people to say dirt about anybody, if they're allowed to do so anonymously.

You're right that it's not hard to dig up dirt on anybody, and I'm sure there are people willing to anonymously bad mouth Coughlin, Belichick, Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh, or any other coach. But again, Silver really seems to think the level of unified antipathy for Schiano is unusual. I'm not sure whether a person being unusually disliked is "news," but I think it does provide a bit of context for Coughlin blowing his stack at Schiano.

Great post. It also makes a difference if the criticism is generic or if there are specifics that allow you to make up your own mind about the validity of the claims. His not talking to guys in the hallway when they visited didn't mean anything to me, but making scouts wait in a box where they couldn't see the field just because he could said a lot about the guy to me. So, scouts are visiting to see YOUR players--a day the players have waited their whole lives for--and he's going to dick them around? Sounds like a guy who really doesn't care much for his players. I can just imagine some kid thinking "Gee, bummer they missed those three great plays I just made because coach was having his little power trip at their expense."

Schiano might be an insufferable dick, in fact, he probably is. But I get irritated whenever the NFL Brahmins start dropping monocles into their champagne flutes and harrumphing that such-and-such, "Simply isn't done in the NFL, sirrah." If Schiano wins a Super Bowl, every unnamed source in this piece will be clamoring to fill Schiano's pockets with money and all the league's brainless flacks will fall all over themselves to tell us how tough Schiano's teams are, how they never stop fighting 'til the fighting's done. Feh.

The point is not that Schiano is a jerk. The point is that he's a jerk who hasn't earned it; he has not proved that his way works. Nobody thinks of Belichick as a big friendly teddy bear, but he gets the benefit of the doubt because he's a great coach. So far, Schiano's resume is a mildly overachieving college team and a 6-point win over a team that is now 1-2 and just got absolutely shelled by the Giants (to whom Tampa lost).

The thing is, given that the rest of the division isn't actually very good, they might even make the playoffs this year with a few missteps by the Falcons.

At any given time, there are going to be 5-6 highly regarded coaches in the NFL. If each of them spins off 5-6 assistants to be new head coaches, a simple numbers argument will require most of them to be failures.

Wikipedia lists six of Belichick's assistants who have gone on to be NFL head coaches: Crennel, McDaniels, Mangini, Al Groh, Saban, and Jim Schwartz (bet you forget about him).

Also, six have gone on to be head coaches in the NCAA: Weis, Kirk Ferentz, Groh, Pat Hill, Bill O'Brien (hasn't started yet), and of course Saban.

I think we could state without equivocating in the least that Nick Saban has had a good deal of success as a college coach.

I tend to agree with you; there's just no way to weed out the randomness. Having said that, Parcells, with Belichik, Coughlin, and Payton has a healthy-lookin' tree, even if it is a randomly planted one.

Saban is an interesting case, because he's been so insanely successful at the college level, but was such an unmitigated disaster at the NFL level.

Maybe Belichick's tree will grow better over time. At this point, I'm unfairly comparing him to the Parcells and Walsh trees, which have both been quite productive. BB has certainly had similar professional success to these guys, but doesn't seem to have the successful proteges yet.
[spam filter is killing the other half of this post, about Schwartz]

Just a minor quibble...Schwartz was never actually on Belicheck's coaching staff, per se, he was a scout with the Browns when Belicheck was the coach. It takes a few mental gymnastics to argue he's from Belichecks "coaching tree."

I guess reasonable people can disagree on whether Schwartz is a good coach or not, but considering what he had to work with when he arrived, I think he's done a reasonably good job (of course doing a good job compared to the history of Lions coaches is not a high bar to reach). Maybe you can make an argument for Bobby Ross being better.

I will say that, win or lose, his teams seem more prepared for each game that any Lions teams I can ever remember (my memory only stretches back to the beginning of the Wayne Fontes era).

The "dirty and undisciplined" meme is a separate discussion altogether.

I can't say that I have complete perspective on Schwartz, watching mostly SF games. I'll not comment on dirty, but I think getting victimized on trap after trap after wham in those games speaks to lack of preparation for those players on the D-line, or lack of discipline in executing their assignments. Either way, that's on the coaching staff.

I think at this point, in his fourth year as HC, I think we don't need to continue to offer the personnel situation as an excuse for poor performance. Right now, we're looking at his players in his system. We'll see how they do.

If you consider 15-7 in the last 22 regular season games a "poor performance", you're grading on a pretty tough curve.

Even then, turning over what was basically the NFL equivalent of a division III roster takes longer than 4 offseasons. I don't care if Jerry Reese is drafting for you.

Speaking of the two games against the Niners, yes he got outcoached by Jim Harbaugh, but there's no shame in that. That's like criticizing a general for being out-maneuvered by Erwin Rommel.

Anyway, like you said, we'll see. I expect a regression year this year, followed by a rebound in 2013 (NFL history is rife with rebuilding scripts like that). If that rebound in 2013 doesn't happen, I'll be at the front of the mob wielding torches and pitchforks, calling for Schwartz and Mayhew's head.

Fair enough! I don't want to stake out a position too far on my opinion of Schwartz. I just haven't really made up my mind about him being great and awesome, or somewhat less than that. And, as I said, I haven't watched too much of the Lions.

That said, my understanding is that it wasn't just the niners having success last year with traps and whams and what have you. From what I saw, it looked like the niners opened the book on their d-line last year, and the lions never really adjusted as other teams did the same thing. And here we are a year later, and the niners are still able to kill that d-line by taking advantage of their overly aggressive play. To me, that's a failure of coaching.

Look at the Bears, 7 yard slants are almost always there for the offense if they want to take it. The corners almost always play with outside position, and the linebackers are too far away to take away those quick hitters.

Well a reporter actually asked Lovie about this, and his response was "you don't lose games because of slants." He was fine with letting teams have slant routes because in exchange they were taking away other things.

That's a very good point, and applies to this discussion. Schwartz is one of the coaches convinced that passing and stopping the pass (rushing the passer) is paramount to everything else. He would rather give up a few big running plays in exchange for having a good 4 man pass rush.

Also, having success on traps and whams against the Lions is more a matter of personnel. The Rams tried the exact same thing in week 1 and got stoned (Steven Jackson only got 53 yards on 21 carries). The 49ers have the offensive line to pull it off effectively.

The one thing I will concede is a failure of coaching is the Lions offensive playcalling against the Niners. Even though the Niners kept 2 safeties back with only 6 or 7 in the box all game, the Lions strength is passing, and they went away from their strength. It was kind of the opposite of Mike Martz last year. Martz had an offensive line that was much better at run blocking than pass blocking, with Matt Forte in the backfield, yet he went pass-crazy. Scott Linehan has Megatron, an offensive line that's much better at pass blocking than run blocking, and all of his running backs were injured/suspended, yet he turned into Chuch Knox. Didn't make any sense to me.

Saban's an odd case. He didn't really hit consistent college success until he got to Alabama. He's remembered for his NC at LSU and leaving MSU after its best season in forever, but his non-2003 and 1999 seasons involved a lot of scuffling and self-destruction. He was 3 games over .500 at MSU outside of 1999 (and no conference titles) and had a lot of 8-win seasons at LSU -- in an era of post-Spurrier at Florida and the Price-Shula era at Alabama -- unforgivable considering LSU's institutional advantages.

The thing about "coaching trees"... A criteria for being a good head coach is *not* hiring guys to work for you that would be good head coaches themselves...it's hiring guys to work for you that make good assistants.

A CEO isn't a bad CEO just because none of his former employees become top CEO's themselves.

No, you're not alone. I actually hope it is true, just for the sheer comic Machiavellian aspect of it.

I've seen this movie before, actually. When Bud Grant retired after the 1983 season, I have reason to suspect that he was extremely frustrated with the ownership group's tightwad ways, which got reflected in coaching salaries (there was no way that Grant, with his very close ties to the region, was going to leave for another job), and perhaps more importantly, retaining talented guys without constant holdouts. Even though it was before free agency, the Vikings would trade talent for lesser players and draft picks, just to save money, like when they traded borderline HOF candidate guard Ed White to San Diego.

Anyways, Grant had enough, and called it quits. He is then said to have recommended one Les Steckel, young clueless assistant, over proven football coach Jerry Burns, who had been with Grant since '67, and before that, with Lombardi. Steckel was an unmitigated disaster, the complete opposite of Grant, full of false bravado and nonsense. The players mutinied, the record ending at 3-13, with a series of blowouts. The town is in an uproar, and the waiting list for season tickets disappears. The ownership group comes crawling back to Grant, who agrees to come back for one year, just as an influx of USFL talent appears on the horizon, with a ownership group willing to pay more. Grant gets a boat load of money for one year, and a lifetime contract on some benefits like an office at Vikings headquarters. Burns gets installed the next year. I'm convinced Grant had that muted phone conversation on the day Steckel was hired.

Or any number of Raider teams that either quit on the coach, or got fed up with Al and his machinations.

Having grown up in Minnesota, I still remember the day when the high school principal interrupted classes on the PA system to announce Les Steckel had been fired. Screams of joy echoed through the hallways.

Not too offend any italians, but this as all the makings of a upstart wiseguy trying to piss off the dons of all the nfl families. It won't due. They will tolerate it so long as they can, but as with other upstarts, the moment you stop producing, you get whacked.

Not too offend any italians, but this has all the makings of a upstart wiseguy trying to piss off the dons of all the nfl families. It won't due. They will tolerate it so long as they can, but as with other upstarts, the moment you stop producing, you get whacked.

A few have already said, that Bucs fans shouldn't care if everyone things he's an a-hole as long as he wins. That's true to an extent, but it gives him far less leeway if his team falters.

The same can be said about Lions fans and Jim Schwartz. Although it does bother a lot of Lions fans (including this one) that he's seemingly given the team the reputation of being undisciplined, dirty players, it's mostly being ignored because everyone's excited about the first decent season in years. However, if he drops a couple of 6-10 or 7-9 seasons in a row, everyone will immediately call for his head, whereas he would be given the benefit of the doubt if it weren't for all the off the field stuff and stomping/personal fouls on the field (the numbers and impact being exaggerated or not).

Oddly enough, here in Chicago, it's the exact opposite situation. Lovie Smith invokes a particular ire amongst fans because he's not enough of a douchebag, and call for his head whenever the Bears hover around .500 because he's not 'passionate' enough.

But I would argue that Smith's temperament is a big reason he's lasted so long. If he was an abrasive jerk, I think he woulda been canned after the 2009 season, or at the very least tossed at the same time Jerry Angelo was.

The dumbest football fan in the world is the meathead who sees a coach on the sideline who, in the opinion of the meathead, is not emoting enough, and therefore lacks "passion" or "fire". Like Paul Brown, Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, Bud Grant, Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs, etc., etc., ad nauseum. It's as if the meatheads should be reading romance novels instead of watching football games.

Reminds me of when John Gruden called out Derek Anderson for laughing at something a lineman said to him during a game in which he was playing badly and his team was getting blown out. Apparently in Grudent's world if you don't walk around contantly scowling and throwing a tantrum while thing aren't going well you're a locker room cancer who doesn't care about winning.

You dont get football, you dont understand sports. The great coaches of all time in any sport dont give a s*** what the media says, what you say. They keep thier team close and they never let the media in. And you all hate it, cause Schiano is telling you to screw off. So people write horrid stuff on him. Guess what, his team wins because media is not on his players, they only care about him, national attention on the bucs, have not happened since superbowl win for tampa. So guess what he has won already. Look at the coaches that made theselves look like a dumb a**. Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells, Vince Lombardi, Mike Ditka, Coach K, Buddy Ryan, I can keep going. Its about his players playing, and the focus on him, so his players can play football, the only other team like that is the pats. This works, you all are just to stupid to see it!!!

He gets even more bonus credit for saying "This works, you all are just to stupid to see it!!!" I love it when someone who doesn't know the difference between "too" and "to" calls others stupid, especially when he adds three exclamation points at the end of the sentence.

What if a possible explanation to Schiano's alleged outlandish rude behavior toward NFL scouts / talent evaluators might be a heightened paranoid defense against competitive intelligence about his Rutger's squad getting to an opponent? Wouldn't the best football evaluators on the planet be the most skilled at astute observations of strengths and weaknesses of a college team? Would giving them unfettered access to a college football team's practice and players be a dangerous source for information about said team getting to an opponent? All it would take is some innocent off-hand comments in an after-hours drinking session with a former NFL scouting comrade who is now a Big East Asst. OC.

I could understand, the impoliteness and hallway stare downs directed toward the unknowingly loose lipped NFL scout. And the placing of NFL scouts in a "holding cell" with incredibly restricted access would not be a stretch to comprehend from an authoritarian NCAA coach - no matter how much I would not personally condone. Besides maybe a "charm offensive" might yield better results for a college coach, as NFL scouts could be incredibly great sources of competitive intel - the Saban contrast? - as opposed to creating a Gulag for NFL Scouts as Schiano was alleged to have done.

Somehow most college coaches are able to handle whatever concerns they might have with NFL personnel without antagonizing them. Even a college that wants to limit access can do it without being jerks: "Penn State was off limits for all but two days a year, but they didn't make you feel as unwelcome."